insurance

Navigate Healing With Loved Ones

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How can you support the heroine in your life and navigate the healing process? Find your inner Chris Columbus.

Being ill is overwhelming. Anyone with ongoing illness is a heroine on an epic journey. This journey can be filled with plenty of bumps, roadblocks, U-turns, and forks (aka decision-making opportunities). There are some awe-inspiring moments as well.

Everyone’s experience of illness is different. Even heroines with the same diagnosis or symptom list will have different experiences of the illness or dis-ease; and the impact on their physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well being varies.

This unique journey your heroine is traveling is not a straight, engineered path moving from A to B to C, so this isn’t a process for a GPS-esque one-size-fits-most solution. The heroine needs a navigator. A valuable way to support the heroine in your life is to be her trusted navigator. Even Amelia Earhart had a navigator.

Because no two journeys are the same and there’s often uncharted territory, lists of things to do may or may not be relevant. No list can cover every circumstance. But anyone, in any situation can draw on inner resources and embody the characteristics of the navigator role. What navigator inspires you? Find a role model for yourself. As you support your heroine consider the traits of your role model and bring that essence into your being.

Here are a few ways to view this journey through the lens of a navigator and embrace your role in your heroine’s healing journey.

Identify the Destination

Most healing journeys have multiple destinations. Each encounter with a healthcare professional could be its own destination. There is the ultimate destination of well-being. The heroine determines the various destinations as the journey unfolds. Regardless of the destination, there are common characteristics to know you’re at a destination that supports your heroine. A destination that works:

  • Feels comfortable ‒ whatever comfortable means to the heroine
  • Strengthens and renews ‒ ultimately the destination is uplifting
  • Encompasses movement on some level ‒ stagnation is not OK

Discuss this with your heroine so you’ll know when you’re on course. If during an appointment the heroine is uncomfortable or not feeling understood, this is feedback that you’re off course.

Pay attention to when the destination shifts. For example, what starts as getting relief for physical pain could shift to identifying underlying emotional trauma that impacts true healing.

Scout the Landscape

Wow, where to start with so much landscape to cover in the world of health, healing and well-being?  This is intertwined with knowing the destination.  When the destination is relief from symptoms, the landscape could be anything from acupuncture, to dietary changes to pharmaceuticals.  When the destination is eliminating the root cause, you’re likely in the territory of older traditions that have studied health for centuries: Naturopathic, Homeopathic, Chinese, or Ayurveda. Pay attention to the destination to know which direction to scout.

Regardless of the landscape, it is helpful to:

  • Curate information – narrow down the vast information into relevant pieces like a museum curator
  • Bring a sense of curiosity –  explore options, ask questions like a child
  • Transform barriers into paths – go above, around, through, or chart a new path; a roadblock may be a sign to shift direction

Map the Cairns

Cairns are stone towers that have marked important places and travel routes for centuries. Your heroine may be struggling just to feel “normal” and have some sort of normal life, and feel how she used to feel. Even people who avidly journal or meditate may miss their own signposts. Having someone else note the journey, like a log book, can be valuable.

Cairns may mark straight routes, turning points, or places to pause and reflect; this could include:

  • Shifts in mindset – for example a new lens of the meaning of the illness
  • Noticing cause and effect – when the heroine feels different emotionally, physically, mentally or spiritually
  • Joy – with so much focus on not feeling well, celebrate even small wins

It can be challenging for friends and family to how to support their heroine. Finding your inner navigator equips you to be supportive moment to moment, and respond to your heroine’s evolving journey.

We Need Your Help

More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter. 

Editors note: this post was published previously on September 2011 under the title, Find your Inner Chris Columbus: Navigating the Healing Process. It was re-titled for publication today.

Image by Cloé Gérard from Pixabay.

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Women Are Less Satisfied with Health Care Than Men – Why?

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The New York Times reported that women are less satisfied with their health care than men, citing a study from Health Services Research.

Researchers could see an overall difference between men’s and women’s views, but these differences were even more prominent for particular questions. One question asked patients if they felt they received sufficient information for the medications they were prescribed, and the other question asked whether patients were satisfied with the cleanliness of the hospital.

In both cases, women were less satisfied with health care than men – significantly so. Now the question is, Why?

Perhaps women have just been paying attention to the news. Dr. Mark Hyman explains in the Huffington Post that postmenopausal women are being prescribed cholesterol-lowering medication that increases their chances of getting diabetes – by 71%.

This isn’t the only instance in which women’s health needs were overlooked:

  • Premarin was prescribed to postmenopausal women to prevent heart disease, but it increased their chances of having a heart attack.
  • Studies have found increased osteoporosis in postmenopausal women prescribed osteoporosis medication.
  • Women are prescribed medicine as though they’re men, yet they are more likely than men to have irregular heartbeats due to prescription cocktails.
  • Many doctors don’t realize that pain medication does not have the same impact on women as it does on men. Experiments show Ibuprofen did not reduce pain for women.
  • In fact, the Society for Women’s Health Research and Medco Health Solutions, Inc. presented a study that showed women are prescribed more medication than men, yet they are less likely than men to get the appropriate drug for their needs.
  • The Center for the Study of Sex Differences at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. explains that your gender can significantly impact how your disease should be diagnosed and treated. Yet the FDA only required that women be included in drug research since 1993.

No wonder women are less satisfied with their health care than men.

Women Are Less Satisfied with Health Care Provider’s Cleanliness

As it turns out, women’s immune systems are more resilient than men’s. Even so, women are more susceptible to certain illnesses and diseases than men are. Some experts suggest a woman’s stronger immune system is the cause for her susceptibility to autoimmune disorders, but the reasons remain unclear.

Sharyn Clough, a philosopher of science at Oregon State University, explained on NPR how society’s emphasis on a girl’s cleanliness could impact her susceptibility to diseases when she gets older, since she may not be exposed to the same bacteria as young boys.

While this may, or may not, be the case, it makes sense for a woman to be more aware of the cleanliness of her environment if she was raised to do so. It is even more reasonable for a woman to consider the cleanliness of her surroundings if she is more susceptible to disease – especially when she is in an institution that treats the sick.

It’s important that health care providers know that women are less satisfied with their health care than men. Voicing our opinions raises awareness, and these industries don’t want to lose half of their market.

It’s entirely possible that women are less satisfied with health care than men because women pay more for health insurance than men – health care that seems to be specifically geared toward the needs of men, not women.

Related Posts:
Women Pay More for Health Insurance
Affordable Care What’s in Effect Now
Falling Through the Cracks

This post was published previously in April 2012. 

 

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Will You be Left Without a Doctor?

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The New York Times looks at a critical problem growing in rural areas of our country. Will you be left without a doctor or specialist in the near future?

“The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that in 2015 the country will have 62,900 fewer doctors than needed. And that number will more than double by 2025, as the expansion of insurance coverage and the aging of baby boomers drive up demand for care. Even without the health care law, the shortfall of doctors in 2025 would still exceed 100,000.”

 

Read the rest of the article focusing on one of the nation’s critical zone, the Imperial Valley of Southern California, here.

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Is Gardasil Mandated in Your State?

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Last week I reported on the controversy of the Gardasil Vaccine produced by Merck (it is important to note that GlaxoSmithKline also makes an HPV vaccine called Cervarix). Many women left comments which confirmed my statements and research with personal stories of their once healthy daughters who are now sick and disabled from this vaccine. This week I will look at which states are mandating that school children get the vaccine and one state that passed legislation for the vaccine to be given to children as young as 12 years old without parental consent.

As I stated in my op-ed piece on the Affordable Health Care Act, I am a libertarian. One of my main concerns about the government controlling our health care is mandated vaccines. To those who think that this could never happen, the simple fact is it’s already happening in our schools and in our military. While I’m a proud Marine, I’m ashamed of the fact that the government has been known to conduct ethically questionable experiments on our troops. In my opinion, vaccines are one of those experiments and rather than do they protect the patient, they ask will the people blindly take them?

While in the Marine Corps, I was vaccinated against every possible disease that there is a vaccine for not once, but twice, sometimes even three times (somehow my shot records never made it to my medical records, which I understand is common in the service). This includes the HPV vaccine, Gardasil. When I say it was mandated, I do in fact mean that I was forced to get these vaccines. Per the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) my body was property of the US Government when I was in the service. You probably think I’m kidding; I’m not. During safety briefs before summer holiday weekends we were told to wear sunscreen (check out the dangers of sunscreen here) because if we got a sunburn while off-duty we could be charged with destruction to government property. Now, that was a little extreme and I don’t know anyone who was actually charged over a sunburn (although it wouldn’t surprise me), it was still true – we were government property. I tried to avoid the Smallpox vaccine and successfully did until we were at the airport terminal boarding the plane for Iraq, I was informed by our unit’s corpsman administering it, “If you don’t get this shot you can’t deploy.”

I sarcastically replied, “Okay,” only to turn around and see the Executive Officer (XO) standing behind me.

Not amused by my sarcasm, he said, “If you don’t get the shot I will charge you with disobeying orders Lieutenant.” He was dead serious.

Thankfully, I have not had any major complications (although the more research that I do, I think I have some ongoing side effects from the Gardasil vaccine).

State Mandates

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) school vaccine requirements are determined by individual states, a right which might be revoked now that states are mandated to enforce individuals to purchase insurance per the Federal government.

In 2006, the Michigan Senate was the first to introduce legislation (S.B.1416) requiring girls entering sixth grade to have the vaccine. The bill was not enacted. According to NCSL, “Since 2006, legislators in at least 41 states and D.C. have introduced legislation to require the vaccine, fund or educate the public about the HPV Vaccine and at least 21 states have enacted legislation, including Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington.”

In February 2007, Texas Governor bypassed state legislation and made an executive order that all females going into the sixth grade had to get vaccinated with Gardasil. In May 2007, state legislators introduced and passed the bill H.B. 1098 to override the executive order. 

The Virginia legislature also passed a school vaccine requirement for Gardasil in 2007. To see what legislation related to the HPV vaccines and information has been introduced to your state, see NCSL’s chart here.

No Parental Consent Necessary

Can it get worse than mandating parents to give their kids a vaccine that causes severe side effects and does nothing more than an annual pap can do to prevent cervical cancer? Of course it can. On January 1, 2012, California’s Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill AB 499 into law. It states:

“Existing law authorizes a minor who is 12 years of age or older to consent to medical care related to the diagnosis or treatment of an infectious, contagious, or communicable disease if it is related to a sexually transmitted disease. This bill would additionally authorize a minor who is 12 years of age or older to consent to medical care related to the prevention of a sexually transmitted disease.  Time-critical preventive services for sexually transmitted diseases include the hepatitis B vaccine, post-exposure prophylactic (PEP) HIV medication (which must be administered within 72 hours of exposure), and the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which, if given prior to exposure, may significantly reduce the risk of certain cancers.”

How did we get here?

This is the easy part. Look at who is benefiting the most -follow the money. In this case, the makers of the vaccines are obviously going to benefit if their product is mandated by use of all children the age of 12-26 years old. Similar to when Texas Governor Perry passed the law to mandate the HPV shot shortly after Merck contributed $6000 dollars to his campaign (amongst other ties to Merck); in California, Merck donated $39, 500 to legislators voting yea on AB 499 according to Cal Watch Dog.

The cost of one shot is $120 and the vaccine is a series of three given over the course of a year. That’s $360 for every girl and boy who gets the vaccine. In most states insurance is mandated to cover this vaccine and there are numerous state and federal programs for those who do not have insurance. With all the side effects and even deaths from this shot, why wouldn’t politicians put those tax dollars to use providing un/under-insured women access to pap smears, a screening test that can catch HPV before it develops into cancer far enough in advance that fairly simple steps can be taken to stop cancer before it even develops? Why, because Merck and GlaxoKlineSmith can’t profit from preventing cancer that way. And how much has Merck made from the Gardasil vaccine? According to CNN Money, Gardasil grossed over $1.1 billion in the first nine months on the market. Unfortunately for Merck, the initial sales momentum has flattened out and is declining. The American public are obviously not buying this vaccine, so Merck and others are going to legislators and to have it mandated instead.

What can you do?

As I always say, GET INVOLVED. Get educated. Complacency, apathy and ignorance are how we got to this point (and Citizens United).  Be wary of a bill that puts a private company’s profits above the safety and well-being of the individual, especially one that involves the health of your child. It is incumbent upon all of us to assess the safety and risks of any medication or vaccine before taking it.

Hormones MatterTM is conducting research on the side effects and adverse events associated with Gardasil and its counterpart Cervarix. If you or your daughter has had either HPV vaccine, please take this important survey. The Gardasil Cervarix HPV Vaccine Survey. 

Further Reading:
Gardasil: Miracle or Deadly Vaccine?
What about the Pap?

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Rights Versus Mandates: The Health Insurance Debate

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I’m 30 years old, I eat right, exercise, get lots of sunshine and minimize the known carcinogens I put in and on my body, but an accident can happen to anyone, right? Last September, I was laid off and COBRA insurance would have cost me $1200 per month to continue coverage, so I decided to take a risk. Bad things happen to good people, but I simply cannot afford to continue coverage at that rate while on unemployment (or working full time for that matter). Those who know I am a veteran might remark, “Oh but you have the VA for insurance.” Yes, I am enrolled in the VA’s health care system, but it is NOT insurance. I have access to health care at the VA on a sliding scale rate based on my income, but this is not “free insurance” as so many civilians have tried to argue with me. If I am treated at a non-VA facility or have to take a joyride in an ambulance, which will take you to the nearest public hospital, I am 100% responsible for that bill. So, no, I don’t have health insurance and the health care I am eligible for at the VA I earned. I’ve never applied for insurance outside of what my employer provided, but I have a pre-existing condition. I’m an unemployed, uninsured statistic, but I refuse to put my individual wants over the laws of the Constitution, the rights of the States and the individuals.

According to Reason Magazine, the individual health insurance mandate is a clear violation of the American contract law because, “American contract law rests on the principle of mutual assent. If I hold a gun to your head and force you to sign a contract, no court of law will honor that document since I coerced you into signing it. Mutual assent must be present in order for a contract to be valid and binding.” Under the Individual Mandate the government will be unlawfully forcing individuals into a contract with private companies.

Where will it stop? On March 27, the second day of the Supreme Court hearing, Chief Justice Roberts asked if the Federal Government was going to force people to own cell phones so they could contact emergency services; a clear example of the slippery slope we are sliding down. If this passes, I would like to propose that we have Home Invasion Insurance and force every American to own a gun, like is required in Switzerland. If everyone owned a gun, who’s going to break into homes? Statistically, the more guns the public owns, the lower the crime rate and Switzerland has the lowest violent crime rates in the world. So, if all of my neighbors own a shotgun, I’m far less likely to fall victim of home invasion and, therefore, have Home Invasion Insurance.

Furthermore, justification for the individual mandate of the Affordable Health Care Act is that it falls under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 states:

[The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes.

This clause authorizes Congress to, “regulate commerce in order to ensure that the flow of interstate commerce is free from local restraints imposed by various states. When Congress deems an aspect of interstate commerce to be in need of supervision, it will enact legislation that must have some real and rational relation to the subject of regulation.” (The Free Legal Dictionary). This clause does not give Congress free reign to regulate any inter/intrastate commerce solely because commerce has taken place. This clause was actually written to protect the States and promote free markets. It is kept in check by the Tenth Amendment, or rather should be. The Tenth Amendment states:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.

And down we slide! In the past year, numerous sting operations have been conducted on Amish farmers selling raw milk to buyers who are fully aware that the product is unpasteurized. In one specific incident, the investigation lasted a year until the milk seller crossed state lines and a SWAT team could arrest him under guise of the Commerce Clause. Yet, does this fall under the Commerce Clause? It shouldn’t – it does not impede the milk companies in the states where the Amish farmers went to sell their villainous raw milk. In response, Congressman, and Presidential candidate, Dr. Ron Paul introduced the bill, HR 1830, to allow the shipment and distribution of unpasteurized milk and milk products for human consumption across state lines. Will we soon have to pass individual laws for every aspect of interstate commerce?

It is no longer even restricted to interstate commerce. “In the 1942 case of Wickard v. Filburn, the Court held that the Commerce Clause allowed Congress to forbid an Ohio farmer named Roscoe Filburn from growing twice the amount of wheat permitted by the Agricultural Adjustment Act and then consuming that extra wheat on his own farm. In 2005, the Court reinforced this decision, holding in Gonzales v. Raich that medical marijuana cultivated and consumed entirely within the state of California still counted as commerce “among the several States” and was therefore open to federal regulation” (Reason Magazine). Again, I ask, where will it stop? Will we have to have another Civil War to defend the State’s Constitutional rights? If so, sign me up.

If this passes the Supreme Court, which is there, not to judge its necessity, but rather its lawfulness, I will be punished. I can’t afford insurance so I’ll be penalized with yet another tax. Last year, my income was taxed 25% for Federal Income Tax, 9.3% by California State Income Tax and on top of that I had to pay 7.75% Sales Tax, the hidden tax. That adds up to 42% of my income! Now, I’m going to be penalized for not purchasing a product I don’t want from a private company? That doesn’t sound like America to me.

And will it even lower health care costs to the individual? NO! I am not an economist, so I will simply refer you to these sites for more information: Charity, Health Care and the Free Market, Find it Hard to Defend Free-Market Medicine. If you can expand more on how this legislation will impede the free market and raise the cost of health care rather than lower it, please join the conversation below.

Our founding fathers wrote great liberties into our constitution, but with these great liberties comes even greater responsibility; the responsibility to fight for those freedoms at all costs. Americans are ready to throw away State rights and individual liberties in order to have health insurance mandated and provided for everyone. However, the Bill of Rights doesn’t include health care, nor should it be up to the government to provide this service. Is the health care system broken? Yes. Do we need the Federal Government to fix it by force, taking away the fundamental rights and choices of individuals, States, private companies, doctors, etc., and thus creating more and more laws, regulations and taxes until we no longer have any freedoms or income? That, my fellow citizens, is up to us and whether we stand up and fight for our rights as bestowed upon us by the Constitution.

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Underinsured, Underdiagnosed and Anonymous: My Hormonal Hardships, Part 1

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It all started in my late teens. Recent high school graduates, my then-boyfriend and I were on our way from O.C. to L.A., when a driver entering the freeway rear-ended us as they were coming off the 91 onramp. A suddenly totaled car and severe case of whiplash quickly changed our prior plans, sending us instead to the local E.R. for immediate medical attention. A series of rush diagnostic tests later, my CT and MRI scans confirmed that I had suffered a C2 cervical neck-spine fracture with lumbar nerve involvement in the collision. I was fortunate to be alive, and luckier still to have survived without brain damage or paralysis, but I would not be simply walking away from this, either. Quite the reverse, it was actually just the beginning of a long battle to come.

Injuries sustained from the crash had triggered a myriad of chronic side effects and secondary conditions, including (but hardly limited to) chronic pelvic pressure, lower back pain, hip misalignment, fatigue, dizziness, and at that time, as-yet “undiagnosed hormonal issues.” I was 19, hurting, scared, and tens of thousands of dollars in debt overnight, due to my emergency room stay, all, through no cause of my own. Having to drop out of college to go through rehabilitative therapy and further hormone assessments over the next couple of years only seemed like more of an end-all to my young future back then. Launched head-first into a cold, cruel world of consistently inconclusive diagnoses and expensive, limited healthcare options, I truly felt the social stigma of being sick and uninsured. Splitting up with my high-school sweetheart a mere few years later, in no small part, because he wanted to have “children of his own”, I also really grew to feel the societal shame of being female and infertile, as well. So, I found myself dually disheartened as my abdominal pain and pressure continued to worsen, going on undiagnosed and untreated clear into my early twenties, despite the ever-growing list of costly blood labs, urinalyses, ultrasounds, and other screening tests, that my doctors had already exhausted.

Even with an employer-provided PPO, it would still be almost five years before any specialist would finally suggest what might be wrong with me (maybe endometriosis, maybe not), or explain what could have caused my prospective condition (maybe trauma from the earlier wreck, maybe not), much less tell me about potential treatments (oral contraceptives, laparoscopy, hysterectomy, or just plain living with the pain and hoping for the best). I was again referred to yet another gynecologist for yet another pelvic sonogram when, at long last, the ultrasound image revealed the suspected endometrial mass, once and for all (or, so we thought). The new gyno’ subsequently diagnosed me with endo’ and put me on low-dose combo estrogen-progesterone birth control pills, taken seasonally, as an alternative to surgery and nerve damage risks. The pill helped relieve some of my symptoms for a while, but it was far from being a permanent cure to my ailment, and ultimately became much more of a curse than a relief to me. Additional complications from an unexpected, ruptured ovarian cyst, followed by an increasingly negative response to the synthetic hormones, also lead to questions about my original diagnosis and method of treatment. Did I have endometriosis at all…was it something else entirely…what do I do now…what do I do next? …

To continue reading, click here.

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Underinsured, Underdiagnosed and Anonymous: My Hormonal Hardships, Part 2

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We left off from Part 1 of my story with a tentative diagnosis of endometriosis, a ruptured ovarian cyst, and ever-increasing doses of oral contraceptives. At that point in my life, I was scared, in pain and worried that I and the doctors should be doing more.

But, as it turned out, there was not much more that I could do.  The doctors said that even if it wasn’t endometriosis, the pill would probably still be the least invasive and least risky treatment option available to me.  They told me this without any intention of scheduling further abdominal inspections, pelvic imaging, endometrial biopsies, or blood draws for biochemical markers, despite my pleas for each.  Then again, they had confirmed my endo’ diagnosis without a laparoscope, or CA-125 antigen test, as it was.  So, what else should I really have expected from them now?  Life on oral contraceptives continued because, apparently, my only other choice was living without a uterus (and risking paralysis due to prior cervical vertebrae injury) at only twenty-five years of age.

I had never had long, frequent, heavy, or uncomfortable periods, much less menstrual cramps, as a young teenager.  But, as a woman on COCPs in her mid-twenties, I was experiencing altogether nonexistent cycles, regular breast discharge, ceaseless bloating, and unrelenting gastrointestinal pain and pressure (on top of chronic neck and back pain from the past car accident).  One silver lining to my proverbial cloud was that I had finally regained most of the neck control and movement previously lost in the collision.  Another consolation to this difficult situation was that I had also saved up enough money, working through physical therapy, to return to school.  And, maybe best of all, I had found (without trying) a steady, supportive, and understanding boyfriend, who was not only my match in every way, but who always stayed by my side, through the ups and downs alike.  Little did we know the coming financial and health woes to befall us, yet again, over the next few years.

Fast forward about three more years into the future—I had transferred to the university as a junior during the Fall term.  My boyfriend and I had been together, going on strong, for four years.  And, I had been working part-time at a job that I loved for nearly two years.  The future again seemed bright.  Healthcare access, however, remained bleak.

The COBRA benefits from my old employer had long expired, not that I could have afforded them at $600 per month anyways.  I didn’t qualify for health insurance at my new workplace because I wasn’t full-time there, owing to a loaded class schedule on-campus.  And, the only medical coverage that I had been able to afford since leaving the other company was a short-lived, hybrid POS-HMO plan, which I ended up having to cancel early as nobody in my area would accept it (there went another few hundred dollars, I couldn’t afford to lose, down the drain).  We had been working around the system, paying out-of-pocket for generic prescriptions, and general lab procedures, at local understaffed health clinics, since no one else seemed willing to work with us.  This got us by (it had to) until an unexpected slip-and-fall accident that December rendered a hidden colon tumor palpable in my lower body (something we wouldn’t learn for another four months or so).

The ER wouldn’t treat me, and only served in referring me to a GI/Endoscopy specialist, who in turn refused to see me because I didn’t have insurance.  A major medical carrier subsequently denied me coverage as uninsurable due to pre-existing conditions (namely my C2 fracture from nine years earlier, and my endometriosis diagnosis from four years prior), essentially blacklisting me among all other healthcare providers.  I couldn’t even qualify for government assistance of any kind.  I had come close to dying in just a few short months without knowing what was wrong with me, and we were running out of time and options fast.  That’s when my boyfriend popped the question, to get me on his insurance, and to save my life…

To continue reading, click here.

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Underinsured, Underdiagnosed and Anonymous: My Hormonal Hardships, Part 3

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We eloped without much fanfare at the Office of Civil Marriages in the Spring and over-nighted a certified copy of our marriage certificate to my newly-wed husband’s H.R. Department ASAP.  A month later, we received our new medical cards, and my husband’s primary physician gave me referrals to a network-approved gynecology specialist and internist.  The gynecologist ordered another abdominal ultrasound, blood draw, urine sample, and pap smear to check for viral, bacterial, and/or urinary tract infections, as well as to rule out other possible conditions like kidney stones or gallstones.  The internal medicine specialist referred me to a gastroenterology-endoscopy doctor to get my spleen, colon, appendix, and liver more thoroughly checked out.  I also remember asking both of them about going off the pill back then, but each one had advised me to stay on it, at least, until my initial lab results were in. It was definitely no honeymoon as the poking and prodding officially commenced once more.

My upper-left abdomen was tender to the touch below my ribcage, and my lower-left abdominal pain had grown much more intense, now radiating from my stomach to my backside in sharp, rapid, debilitating jabs.  It felt like my organs had dropped, and my insides were trying to force their way out of me.  It stung to urinate, hurt to have a bowel movement, my urine was very cloudy, and there was a lot of (too much) blood in my stool.  The burning sensation in my bladder and the rigidness of my muscles were limiting my mobility, aggravated lower quadrant soreness and spasms were impairing my sleep, and a newfound fear of vomiting or otherwise using the restroom was inhibiting my appetite.  I was faint, weary, and weak from excess blood loss, malnutrition, insomnia, distress, and delayed treatment.  And, I was just about to begin another taxing hodgepodge of could-be prognoses throughout a long (almost too long) diagnostic process of elimination.

The gyno’ reported that I had crystals but no stones in my urine, and prescribed me antibiotics for a bladder infection (one problem down, many more to go).  The ultrasound image still showed a small mass and fibrous tissue, but they did not appear to be ovarian or polycystic in nature.  Likewise, although my iron levels were down, my lab panel showed no sign of kidney or gallbladder abnormality or dysfunction.  And, there did not seem to be any cervical or vaginal lesions, viral or bacterial.  They said that a small uterus might explain my short, light, and irregular periods during adolescence (previously a non-issue to me), as well as an increased susceptibility to endometriosis, and a decreased success rate for surgical assessment or treatment thereof.  So, laparoscopy was ruled out as a viable diagnostic test or care option for endo’ altogether, rendering my prior endometrial diagnosis unconfirmed (but still, ironically considered a pre-existing condition), and my current status was again in question.  It was, however, recommended that I ask the gastroenterologist/endoscopy specialist about the possibility of any additional bowel, thyroid, and/or pancreatic involvement, though.

By the first time that I saw the GI/endoscopy doctor who the internist had referred me to, a few weeks later, my bladder infection had cleared up and my urine was back to normal.  But, I was now passing mucus, tissue, and blood clumps, without bowel movements, in addition to suffering from constant rectal bleeding (without any bowel activity).  I could now also feel a throbbing lump bulging against my insides from somewhere near my perineal area, making it extremely difficult for me to sit down (when it had already become problematic for me to lay down on my stomach or even to lie on my back).  The gastro-endoscopy physician told me that I had injured my spleen in the slip-and-fall accident, and that it would probably take another month or so for it to fully heal on its own, thus explaining the tenderness that I had felt under my ribs.  The doctor also suspected that I had colitis (inflammation of the large intestines) with internal prolapsed piles, and wrote me a prescription for sulfa antibiotics, hydrocodone painkillers, and corticosteroids, for at-home treatment.  The second course of antibiotics made me feel a little bit better, and the painkillers helped me to sleep some, but the corticosteroids made the small lump inside me swell into a larger bump ready to burst through my very skin.  No, I didn’t have piles or colitis, either.

Five weeks and a bunch of different tests later, I also didn’t have appendicitis, pancreatitis, hepatitis, cirrhosis of the liver, thyroid disease, or diabetes, among other things.  I still didn’t have gallstones or kidney stones (they double-checked), but I was still on oral contraceptives (and hating it) as continued to be advised for no given reason.  I had been married for four months; the summer was half-over and we were spending hundreds of dollars per month in medical premium deductions, on top of hundreds more in mounting insurance co-pays, and other related expenses to no avail (needless to say, our savings and hopes were dwindling quickly).  They didn’t want to do a colonoscopy on me because I was way under the age of fifty,  had no recorded family history of colon polyps, colonic ulcers, diverticulosis, or diverticulitis, and nobody really expected to find anything anyways.  But, they too had run out of other tests to perform, even though I wasn’t getting any better under their watch.  A preliminary colonoscopy and biopsy, a repeat procedure, and multiple follow-up biopsies, however, ‘finally’ and shockingly confirmed that I had an adenocarcinoma tumor in my colon. I had colon cancer?  …I had colon cancer…

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